


Wrong

by catcircles



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, NOT MCREYES, Not Shippy, Self-Harm, Trans Character, Trans Jesse McCree, basically jesse has a bad day and gabe swoops in and helps out, gabe is his mcfucking dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 14:43:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13009989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catcircles/pseuds/catcircles
Summary: McCree deals with something he hasn't dealt with in awhile, and things get bad before they get better.(Warnings for: Self-Harm)





	Wrong

Jesse laid in bed, tired eyes blinking slowly and blearily out into the quiet darkness of his room. Absentmindedly, his gaze shifted to the digital clock on his wall. It was well past time for roll call. He had no doubt missed training, and Gabe was no doubt pissed at him for it. It was only a matter of time before they would break for lunch and his Commander would come storming into his room to give him an earful for his absence.

But right now, Jesse couldn’t bring himself to care. Hell, he could barely bring himself to keep his eyes open. He hadn’t had a day this bad in awhile. Not since the surgery, anyway, but this morning when he had woken up at 3am from a nightmare he couldn’t remember, he felt his body consumed in that familiar, grey fog of numb exhaustion. His body. His wrong, disjointed, disconnected body.

Jesse ran his hands lightly over his T-shirt, just barely able to feel the scars under his pecs through the soft blue fabric. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but found it stuck there. Fuck this fucking body. Something in him burned, something hot and ugly.He felt wrong. He felt fake. He felt like a stranger in his own goddamn skin, In this too-soft, too small, too _wrong_ body.

_There's nothing wrong with my body._

He kept reassuring himself, repeating it over and over again in his head like a mantra, but _fuck_ , he wished he could actually believe himself as he did. It used to be like this every day before his top surgery procedure, back when Gabe would tell him instead, holding him tight and talking him through some of the worst bouts of dysphoria he’d ever had. Gabe had surprised him with the mastectomy evaluation appointment on his eighteenth birthday after joining up with Blackwatch. Jesse remembered how many happy tears he’d cried that day.

And really, through everything, Gabe had been his rock. Always there for a shoulder to lean on when things got rough, he was always looking out for Jesse, protecting him. He owed everything he had to that man.

Shit, if he could see Jesse now.

 _You're so fucking pathetic_.

Jesse felt his eyes well up with tears through the self-deprecating fog numbing his senses. How fucking _pathetic_ that he was back here, curled up in bed and crying after everything. How many times was he going to do this? Expecting Commander Reyes to come pick up the pieces again, like he was responsible for him; for his weaknesses. He was just another disappointment. A broken freak. Gabe… no… his _Commander_ didn’t deserve to have to deal with his shit, to coddle a mess like him. 

Trembling now, and with big, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, Jesse forced himself up in bed. Moving on autopilot, he let his body fall back into its old routine. Going through the motions as step after shaky step brought him into his bathroom, then to the cabinet under the sink where he knew the little grey box was still taped behind the water pipe. It had been a long time since he’d last done this, but he couldn’t stay numb. He needed to force himself out of this, just get a jumpstart and get the fuck back to work.

Shaking hands pulled the glinting razor from its hiding place as he slumped to the floor, sweaty back pressed to the tile wall of the bathroom. Jesse sucked in a deep breath through a stream of tears as he hiked the hem of his boxers up and pressed the metal to his right thigh. No pressure yet, just resting it there, over the map of thick, long since healed scars there from so long ago. 

_Do it_. 

His mind jeered at him.

 _Fucking coward. Weak. Fake. You know you deserve it. Imagine if Reyes could see you. Imagine how d i s a p p o i n t e d he would be_.

Breath hitching on a sob, Jesse slashed at his skin with the blade. Blood beaded up quickly, but before he could process it, he was bringing the sharp edge down again. 

And again.

And again.

He didn’t stop until he was shaking too much to keep a firm grip on the razor in his hand. With a soft clink, the bloody metal fell to the floor and Jesse breathed deeply, frantically inhaling and exhaling as he surveyed the damage on his thigh. His vision swam with tears again. Months of progress down the drain, but fuck, he thought bitterly, at least now he was doing something productive. 

Through his own heaving breaths and the rush of blood in his ears, Jesse didn’t hear the knocking on his bedroom door. The sound of his own adrenaline rush was loud enough that he didn’t hear the door open soon after, or the heavy, familiar footsteps approaching his bathroom.

 

"Jesse?"

The soft voice made Jesse freeze up instantly. Before he even had time to react, the door was being pushed open, slowly, cautiously, to reveal Gabriel on the other side. Jesse was paralyzed, gripping his stinging thighs with bloodied hands, staring wide-eyed up at the man in the doorway, unable to make a sound. 

Gabriel's face flashed with shock as he took in the scene below him, before melting into a second, more pained expression.

 _Disappointment_

Jesse thought.

The Commander knelt slowly, reaching out a calloused hand to the young man still quaking on the cold, bloody bathroom floor. 

"Fuck, Jesse. What happened?" He asked, voice gentle and cracking slightly as he reached out and made contact with Jesse's shoulder. 

Jesse went to open his mouth and reply, but found himself at a loss for words. He let out a distressed little choking noise and his shoulders shook once again, letting out a quiet sob. Gabriel's heart wrenched in his chest and he leaned forward to pull Jesse to him and wrap him in a warm, solid embrace. Jesse's dam broke. Nestled safely into the soft black fabric of Gabe's hoodie, Jesse broke down, all the while the Commander rubbing soothing circles into his back, mouth pressed to the top of his head as he murmured,

"Let it out, Jess. It's okay, kiddo. Just cry." 

When Jesse had cried himself out, Gabe pulled away slowly, smoothing back Jesse's sleep-mussed hair from his tear soaked face. 

"I'm gonna patch you up, okay?" He told him. 

Jesse nodded. Gabriel stood slowly to gather what he needed from the medicine cabinet, and Jesse felt sick at the sight of fresh, wet blood staining the dark grey of the older man's sweatpants. Crimson pinpricks of his own blood making a mess of the otherwise spotless fabric. He felt himself begin to tremble again.

_You make a mess of everything you ruin everything and he's fixing you up again-_

"Jess." 

Gabriel's deep, calm voice pulled Jesse out of his own head. Gabe knelt beside him again and reached out gingerly with a pad of rubbing alcohol. 

"Just take deep breaths, Jesse. It's only gonna sting for a second." He assured him. 

Jesse gritted his teeth against the sting, letting Gabriel tend to his wounds in silence, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the bathroom wall.

When he had finished, and Jesse's leg was snugly bandaged with the better half of a roll of gauze, Gabriel sat back against the bathroom sink cabinet directly in front of Jesse. Their knees touched in the tight space, and for Jesse it was grounding. He brushed a tentative and still unsteady hand over the fresh bandages. 

"I-I'm sorry." He croaked, voice raw from disuse and crying. 

Gabriel looked ready to respond when Jesse spoke up again. 

"I just... I couldn't get out of bed. Everything was wrong. I didn't know what else to do." 

Gabriel tilted his head slightly.

“Everything?” He asked, eyebrows knitted tightly together in concern. 

Jesse took a shuddering breath. 

“Not everything I guess, well…” He paused. “Everything with _me_.” 

Gabriel made a sad sound and reached a hand out to rest comfortingly on Jesse’s knee.

“Oh, Jesse…” He started, but Jesse cut him off.

“No, fuck. I’m not right, don’t you get it? I’m a fake, I’m a freak, and I’m weak, Gabe. I’m _wrong_.” He hissed, voice thick with tears and anger. “I’m… I’m not even a real-”

Now it was Gabriel’s turn to interrupt. 

“Jesse fucking McCree,” he cut in firmly, tightening his grip on Jesse’s knee ever so slightly, giving it a little jostle. “You look at me, and listen good to what I am about to say to you.”

Jesse stilled and looked nervously up at his Commander.

“Jesse, you are every ounce a man as anyone else in this whole godforsaken base. Hell, in the world. Your body’s got nothing to do with who you are, and god, kid, I’m so sorry because I know it must be hard to feel like that’s true sometimes when you’ve got years of the backside to that rhetoric stored away in your brain, but it is.” He paused for a minute and looked over Jesse again.

“You’re… you’re my son, Jesse. You’re my boy. You’re strong, and you’re damn real. Whatever you feel, you _are_ , Jess, because you got just as good a head on your shoulders as anyone else. No one else can tell you a damn thing about what’s real about you and what ain’t. You’re you.”  
Jesse could feel fresh tears welling up in his eyes as he tried to keep a steady gaze on Gabriel’s face. 

“You’re as real a man as they come, Jesse, and I could not be more proud of you.”

Jesse sniffled quietly, bringing a hand up to rub at his bleary eyes. When he looked back up, there was a wobbly smile on his face and he let his other, dry hand come up to rest on top of Gabriel’s where it still held his knee. 

Gabriel smiled back, and turned his palm upside down underneath Jesse’s to hold his hand tightly. 

“You gotta stop hurting yourself, kiddo. You gotta come to me instead. Any time, any day. Get Athena to buzz me and I’ll be over as soon as I can.”

Jesse swallowed. 

“I just don’t want to be a burden. I don’t want to bother you with my stupid shit” He said quietly, looking at the way Gabriel’s big, strong hand was almost enveloping his own. 

“You’re never a burden.” He replied. 

“And this,” he gestured to the thick bandages on Jesse’s thigh, “Is not stupid shit.”

Jesse sniffled again, and nodded. He squeezed Gabriel's hand. 

"Okay." He agreed. 

Another beat of silence passed before he spoke again, softer this time. 

"Thank you." He all but whispered. 

Gabriel hummed in response before squeezing back at the smaller hand in his. 

And as Jesse sat there, clinging to Gabriel's strong, familiar hand like a lifeline on the cold floor of his cramped bathroom, sitting knee to knee with the best father he could have ever asked for, nothing had never felt more right.

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh.... this feels sloppy and rushed and ooc but hot damn did i need to get some feelings out.
> 
> so... yeah here's this i guess


End file.
